Wednesday, November 26, 2008  Latin America

GARZA GARCIA, Mexico, November 25, 2008-- IGNIA Fund I, L.P., Latin America's first social venture fund, announced today it has reached a total of US$34 million in equity commitments by completing its second closing. Investors include the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a US family foundation, and European and Latin American individuals. This round of US$13.6 million builds on IGNIA's initial closing of $20.6 million announced in early Jun...

Tuesday, November 25, 2008  No Region Specified

When Nachiket Mor was an undergrad studying physics in Mumbai, he spent his vacations working with nonprofits. The obligation to help others, he recalls, grew from his years at Brockwood Park, a boarding school founded by philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti outside London to teach, among other things, the value of community. Today, after a career in finance, the 44-year-old banker has made philanthropy his full-time occupation. In the process, he may alter financial services in rural India.

Saturday, November 15, 2008  Latin America

The live music is by Exaltasamba and, as it pounds out of stacks of loudspeakers, the singer gets -the several hundred people in front of the store dancing, jumping and waving their arms as if there is no -tomorrow. It is 9.30 am and the show has been put on for the opening of a new S?o Paulo outlet of Casas Bahia, a Brazilian retailer of furniture and electrical goods. The store is one of the chain's 550 in Brazil and its first to open in a favela - one of the sprawl...

Saturday, November 15, 2008  No Region Specified

This weekend an attempt will be made by world leaders to redesign capitalism . A new financial architecture will be put in place. This effort will fail unless the bottom billion ? those living on less than a dollar a day ? are invited from the shadows and allowed to work with us in forging our brave new model. Just a few we...

Monday, November 10, 2008  No Region Specified

For Devi and others like her, Microsoft Corporation has played a role in providing access to technology and training that has allowed her to enter one of India's fastest growing sectors: information technology. Microsoft, in partnership with 13 local organizations, has opened more than 700 technology learning centers across the country. At a center in Hyderabad, India, Devi completed a three-month training program in computer basics. She learned how to use the Internet, draw up ...

Monday, November 10, 2008  No Region Specified

IGNIA Shared Services Company is a novel concept for an emerging markets venture fund, a dedicated in-house company that will fully focus on streamlining administrative operations and developing systems and procedures that will serve as administrative platforms for portfolio companies to achieve scale, said Fabrice Serfati, CEO of IGNIA Shared Services. This will allow the entrepreneur and leadership team to focus on doing what they do best: building the core business....

Thursday, November 6, 2008  No Region Specified

D. Light Design today announced it has secured Series A financing led by Nexus India Capital, along with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Garage Technology Ventures, Mahindra and Mahindra, and social funds Acumen Fund and Gray Matters Capital. The same team of investors provided seed funding for D. Light when it was founded over a year ago with the mission to bring clean, safe, and affordable light to 1.6 billion people living without electricity. D. Light aims to eradicate the ker...

Thursday, November 6, 2008  No Region Specified

There are many ways to cope?? with hard times and a financial meltdown. Three companies, San Miguel Corp., Ayala Corp. and Vista Land provide templates. One is have a good cash hoard. This is the San Miguel example. Another is pay attention to the low end of the market. This is the tack ironically of the Ayala Group, a group associated with high end products and services for the snooty segment of the consumer market. ?Third is the old-fashioned way, what Senate P...

Wednesday, November 5, 2008  No Region Specified

By Jack Ewing Nokia executives have long maintained that customers in emerging markets will get on the Internet primarily through their mobile phones. On Nov. 4 the company announced a series of new devices and services designed to prove the assertion by extending the benefits of the Web to rural Indians, including crop information for farmers and mobile e-mail for people who don't have access to a personal computer. The Finnish handset maker helped pioneer the industry...

Tuesday, November 4, 2008  No Region Specified

Nokia today announced that it plans to launch Nokia Life Tools, a range of innovative Agriculture information and Education services targeted to non-urban consumers. Designed specifically for emerging markets, Nokia Life Tools helps overcome information constraints and provides services to this next generation of mobile users. Nokia plans to launch the service, beginning in the first half of 2009 with the Nokia 2323 classic and the Nokia 2330 classic as the lead devices in India and expand acros...

Tuesday, November 4, 2008  No Region Specified

Sateesh Andra, co-convenor, Tie-ISB, and venture partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, India, answers Shobha Warrier's questions about the event. Excerpts: TiE-ISB Connect 2008 has come up with an interesting theme -- The Next 800 Million opportunity. What is the reason behind the theme? Entrepreneurs so far have been focusing on the top of the pyramid that comprises 200 million people. However, with economic growth, the middle and the bottom of the pyr...

Monday, November 3, 2008  No Region Specified

Hindustan Unilever?s CEO and Managing Director, Mr Nitin Paranjpe, says growth for fast moving consumer goods continues to remain buoyant with both rural and urban segments growing at about 15 per cent. ?Normally, one would have expected growth rates to come down in inflationary times. There are a few reasons why we feel growth has held out this far, but what happens in the future as a result of the events of the past few weeks is anybody?s guess so I don?t want to venture into that s...